Second annual Home and Garden Show chock-full of businesses, seminars

Set to take place on Saturday, March 17, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Diman Regional High School, the Bristol County Home and Garden Show is bursting at the seams with dozens of booths being secured in advance with returning businesses and a whole crop of new businesses set to make their mark.

With year one under the Chamber’s belt, the second annual Bristol County Home and Garden Show looks to be one of the most successful events in the 2012 calendar year.

Set to take place on Saturday, March 17, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Diman Regional High School, this year’s show is already bursting at the seams with dozens of booths being secured in advance with returning businesses and a whole crop of new businesses set to make their mark.

“Our company participates in approximately 400 shows a year and the Home & Garden Show in Fall River is a fantastic show. We met many interested contacts at the show. The staff is friendly and the show runs very smoothly from set-up to show hours to the break down,” said Marianne Baehr, events coordinator for Kitchen Magic, which is returning for a second time. “I was surprised how much exposure we received. The show rated up there with some major home shows we participate in in all states we service. We hope to meet even more prospects this year than last.”

Kim Gravel, president of Decorative Landscapes Inc., said she had a great experience at last year’s show, securing a lot of positive feedback and outcomes based on their sample outdoor living room display as well as on their illustrations of the unique photo image landscape design.

“We experienced very busy traffic flow throughout the day. I know for a fact some clients came in to the show looking for us specifically based on newspaper ads that went out prior to the show,” said Gravel. “We are coming back in order to be able to demonstrate first hand to potential clients exactly how we can help them achieve their “dream” outdoor living space goals whether it’s a new front landscape or a backyard paradise. We hope to have the same busy traffic flow that we had last year.”

Jo Ann Hetzler, co-owner of Hetzler Contracting said the amount of advertising leading up to the show and the show being so professionally organized helped to make the show a huge success for them.

“We received 30 actual requests at the show for estimates on various types of work. All these leads were local, including Taunton. Of those, we received 12 actual jobs. These jobs did not all happen right away after the show, but all through the year,” said Hetzler. “During the year, we did have calls from people who attended the show and did not ask for estimates at the time. We got five other jobs that way.”

Hetzler said they decided to sign up for another turn at the Bristol County Home & Garden Show because the amount of exposure they received from a single day’s event was “priceless”.

“Just the number of people walking by our booth was amazing and the people who attended the show seemed very happy to be going to something local.

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“We are hoping to get lots of interest in having our company bid on projects that show-goers have in mind,” said Hetzler, who plans to showcase a new garden item for the show. “We hope that when people meet us and see that we are a very professional organization that they will want to do business with us.”

Tom Martin, owner of TM Construction & Remodeling, Inc. said he was able to meet a good amount of people that attended the event as well as those that took part in his seminar.

“To be honest, we received a lot of leads, contacts and business from the show and the seminar, so it was well worth our time,” said Martin. “I enjoyed doing the seminars and showing people what I know and how I can help them. I hope to get even more people to attend this year. It was just a solid show.”

Dick Souza of Richard Dick Souza Electric said he was impressed at the turnout for the first-year show and hopes it just keeps growing.

“The Herald News did an excellent job of advertising the event and the Chamber crew did a great job of putting the show together,” said Souza. “My only complaint was that I wish it was a two-day show, but other than that it was great and the questions I received from the attendees were all good, solid questions.”

The second annual Bristol County Home & Garden Show will take place on Saturday, March 17. Although seminars are still being secured for the day, returning favorites Chef Jessica Williams will conduct a food seminar at 11 a.m. and Chef Fehmi at noon, both bringing their years of cooking expertise to the show once again. The Home & Garden show will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Diman Regional High School. For more information, call the Chamber at 508-676-8226.